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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26077243">What She Knows</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chyanne_erin/pseuds/chyanne_erin'>chyanne_erin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>DnD - Fandom, Dungeons &amp; Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work, The Shifting Sands of the AhRasi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>D&amp;D, F/F, F/M, Original D&amp;D Character - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:34:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,958</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26077243</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chyanne_erin/pseuds/chyanne_erin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lady Orithana Nightward knows many things -- what is expected of her, what she is supposed to do, how to make a pact with whichever being is listening when you're desperate. She doesn't know what it feels like to be well and truly loved, until she meets Lord Alfred. Trapped in a contract of marriage made by her mother, Orithana pushes Alfred away until she no longer can avoid her feelings. When he leaves for a second time to go deal with the house he has married into, Athena confesses her love. Unsure of what to do, and where her future happiness lies, Orithana remains confused and lost and, for once, she realizes that there is so much she does not know.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original D&amp;D Character/Original D&amp;D Character</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What She Knows</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have been writing so much fiction for my own Dungeons and Dragons campaign and, really, I just wanted to post it somewhere so both my fellow players and others can read it. The fandom is pretty much my party and the three people that read my twitter thread every Saturday but, if you somehow stumble across this, I hope you enjoy some painful longing, yearning, and the absolute angst that is apart of this campaign.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Orithana knows many things, pulled from her books and the notes scrawled into the margins of things she has read a million times over. She also knows how unseemly it is for a woman of her status, and her age, to be so invested in things outside of the politics and games they all want her to play in. Her mother, Lady Bel Nightward, insists on her marriage sooner rather than later. Orithana is twenty-two. She reads her books and studies her magic, her hands craving to find the solutions of problems that bounce in her mind. Mainly this — she has no magic but wants to shape the world. She tells her mother to give her even more time, to fend off the suitors and expectations. It isn’t her mother who tries but her father who pushes for a year while Orithana sticks her head in books. She latches on to the study of evocation magic, then leans towards a bit of family history, until she eventually careens into the pits of fiends, devils, and where the planes dare to touch the material. As soon as her research is coming to fruition, Lady Orithana Nightward goes to leave her study filled with all the comforts of books and magic, and finds the door locked. A practical joke by her sisters, Zariel or Thalia she’s sure until, after rattling the door knob, she gets an answer. Lady Bel stands on the other side of the study. She keeps the door locked. She knows this: a lady is useless in their society without a husband by her side, and that the Ravenstars are desperate to get their son married off to a respectable woman. She could rein him in and he could stop the foolishness of her scholarly pursuits. She tells Orithana that she is to be wed in the morning and walks away, leaving her daughter alone with her notes and her magic, and all the things she thinks she knows.  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Orithana knows the life her mother wishes for her is not where she wants to be, so she begins crafting a plan to get out because what else is a lady to do? When she manages to escape her family manor, she runs into the arms of the Ravenstars’ mercenaries who attempt to drag her back to the altar but, in one last desperate attempt, Orithana recalls all the research she knows of those fiends and devils and all the horrific beings, and she prays. She prays desperately, hoping for something holy, but is met with sulfur and fire and, for that moment, it is enough to get what she wants so she takes it, signing whatever life she has away to a beast with no name. Unknown to her, as she flees into the night, she kills fifteen of them but manages to escape with her own life, arriving on the shores of a foreign continent by the name of Sharanna. This is the moment her life changes. Somehow, fate sees it fit to have her meet Alfred in a tavern in Yuakh alongside her party, and he joins them because life seems to be funny that way. He speaks of the book he wants to write, how much he wants to research, and how it seems that they are all going to  adventure together. Orithana thinks that this is fine, everyone needs a bard by their side, and she thinks of the title that he holds. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Lord</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He says it with such an assured smile on his face like he has never had to bear the weight of that title as Orithana keeps her own stuck in her throat. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Lord, </span>
  </em>
  <span>which means he could be some use to her if she is to face them again. All he seems to be is a potential means to an end, an avenue not originally open to Orithana and she believes that, if she needs to, she might be able to mold him into someone good enough for her mother. This is her second mistake because, somewhere along the way, he doesn’t stay </span>
  <em>
    <span>Lord </span>
  </em>
  <span>Alfred. He becomes just Alfred until she says Al for the first time and it feels so right. Al the ideas about their noble responsibilities slip from their shoulders. She doesn't know how much she is going to wish to go back to that moment inside of the tavern and tell herself to run from the bard with the pretty eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Orithana knows many things, but she doesn’t know what it feels like to be well and truly loved. He tells her in a letter she reads with shaking hands, a scrawl that promises his safe return. One that tells her to stay safe, stay alive, and that he loves her. When her eyes, brimming with tears, skim over those words she can hardly believe it. Her breath hitches in her throat but her hand steadies because of course he does. That pure, desperate yearning form of love, that which she had felt blossom the moment at the beach. He was droning on about the history of Vir and she was trying to listen, but the sun caught his hair and made it golden and the sea they sat next to paled in comparison to his eyes. Then, she felt a shift. Not cataclysmic or earth-shaking but solid, more real than anything in her life. He tells her while they’re out together in the city that he cares for her. He calls her brilliant and talented, and all the things that she has wanted so badly to hear. Orithana thinks during this moment that she could feel the same way too but a fear lingers in her throat so she confesses of a marriage and a fiancé she is promised to because her feelings are heavier than anything she has had to bear. She believes, during this moment, it is enough to deter Lord Alfred from ever loving her but he does so anyway because he takes her hand in his and assures that they’ll find a way to keep her safe. Despite it all, she believes him. She curses his charm silently but can’t be mad except when he leaves through his words and his magic, enthralling them all with the bit of both he has in his possession. Then Orithana feels angry, a forbidden emotion for women of her status, but she feels it burn anyway. It’s true that she has known that life can be unfair and unjust. That it doesn’t always have a happy ending but, well, she thinks that she has at least been through enough to justify getting one anyway. Just when she can see the end of a story, just when she survives the horrors of a desert that tries to kill everyone, when she sees the reunion of the cleric and his love and aches for Alfred’s hand in her’s, does she get the news. Twenty-five words sent to their cleric. Twenty-five words, less than that which was in the letter, but it makes her hands shake again because Orithana knows that they can’t be good. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Orithana knows about love stories, how they’re supposed to end all beautiful and poetic or tragic and painful. She believed herself to be a heroine, witnessing the epic love story of two nobles running very parallel, fated lives who end up with their happily forever after. The Tale of Orithana Nightward and Alfred Vourela. But that is no longer his name, no. He changes it at a wedding where he almost dies and Orithana, through the cluttered words sent to someone other than her, feels a bit of herself fade as well. Of course, the valiant hero, he returns with news of home as Yuakh’s Chosen lays siege to a castle to overthrow its corrupt Queen, and he squeezes her hand. She gives him a smile that he sees right through because, of course he does and, when her voice trembles at her insistence that she’s fine, he tells her he’s still hers. And she wants to believe it, that’s the thing, but there is a clock that ticks above their heads and Orithana waits for it to fall. She thinks of the Ravenstars and ignores him, or tries her best to, and attempts to wedge them in the chasm that opens up the moment he mentions his marriage. She thinks she can’t fall in love. She doesn’t know that, buried deep with roots scrawling through her heart, is the very thing she so fears. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Orithana knows that three months is forever, that anything could change and, during that time, Alfred remains relentless. He’s by her side in every battle both with their enemies and herself. When she stumbles it always feels like he’s there to catch her so it becomes easy to forget about the time he wasn’t.  She willfully ignores it all and finds herself reaching out her hand to find his more. Except for the moment that the Ravenstars discover she’s back in the city and they wish to talk. Except for the second that Lord Anselm Ravenstar explains that the debt is accumulating and he’ll drag her back at any cost. She bargains with herself and him  that she’s allowed three months with a boy who loves her and through it all he reminds her there’s so much time. Until the days begin to shorten and the wolves seem to breathe down her neck and she panics. She places all of her faith into a beast that doesn’t care for her and that is when Sirun falls. When her best friend, the tether to her heart, is crushed beneath the weight of a malicious dragon, and dies. That night, after the failure of the resurrection of the first person she ever admitted her love to, he asks her, “Was it worth it?” So, Orithana marches outside with the book her patron wants in her hands and threatens him with a voice that quivers but hands that are steady as they dig into the pages and threaten to tear them out. He responds. He tells her good job. He tells her that she’s so important and it’s all the things Orithana wants to hear. She keeps the book. That is her third fatal mistake. She keeps the book on ascension and he reads it all. He knows exactly how to become a god. Orithana convinces herself that this is good, that he will protect her from the Ravenstars, that she will get a happy ending one day even if her best friend is dead because that death is going to make it possible. She tells herself all of this as she goes to bed that night, knowing it isn’t worth it but she needs faith. Faith is what she puts into her patron who finally reveals his name and face. Faith is what she puts into those around her but, she stops believing that three months is forever. She recites the line to herself over and over as she clamors for some form of footing to stand on, but all she finds is empty air and unanswered questions. Still, she pushes on and she tells herself to hold him at arms-length because she’s to be married to another and so is he. Then, they go to Vir because Orithana is terrified and Alfred uses his magic to whisk them all away to where the Ravenstars wouldn’t dare to make a move. In the middle of a city that Orithana does not know, the rogue pulls her aside and warns her to watch over her heart. For once Orithana feels safer than she has before with someone watching over her. Eventually, though, it isn’t the Blazing Lion who gifts her with a way out but herself who bends the will of the man she is to marry, and he spills all the information he knows of his family. Orithana, as a thanks, uses all she knows to manipulate them into letting her family out of the marriage contract so she is, finally, free. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Orithana knows this one thing: she is a selfish being but she deserves to be happy even if it’s fleeting. In the garden, in the shadow of Nightward manor, Orithana grabs Alfred’s hand and finally tells him what he wrote in that letter so long ago. He kisses her under the stars and in the moonlight, and it feels romantic and perfect. Underneath it, though, Orithana feels the finality of it and a fact thrums at the back of her head. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He is married to another, to a family more important than yours in a foreign land. At best you’re going to a mistress or a laughing stock or killed by the unruly matron of his married house</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But, despise these warnings, she brushes it off because she just wants to be happy for once. Her shoulders relax and she holds her entire world in her arms that night, feeling safe again, and batting away any ideas about consequences. Their lives are fleeting little things, taken in seconds, and she just wants to know what it’s like to love and be loved. She holds his hand during their adventures. When they face down the elemental prince of air, she feels such raw fear in her throat as Al falls in the middle of battle. When he stands again, when the fight is over, relief and satisfaction that at least she told him, washes over her. They adventure in comfortability, growing more accustomed to each other as time moves on. That is, until Prostenberg. A vision is sent to her by her rather silent patron who tells her to meet up with another believer. A god’s relic is in his possession and Orithana tells everyone to not make a move without her approval lest she face the consequences. Months have been spent praying to other gods and attempting to tow the line between loyal warlock and rebellious follower. She listens, anyway, and they go. But he doesn’t seem to listen. He launches magic at her patron’s own, and time seems to slow. Orithana knows this — that simple act is going to ruin her life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Orithana knows that this cannot end good but she wills herself into blind belief until the nightmare comes. He warns her of disobedience and consequences, of a fate worse than death, and she feels her earth shatter into a million pieces. Her hands grasp, they cast her spells that appear white and untamed and not aligned with anything. He has broken her pact. She feels anger that boils up and wells inside of her. Anger that she hasn’t felt since she originally made the pact. She turns to stare at her ex-patron’s follower and thinks of burning him alive. Then her eyes catch on Alfred in his sleep, oblivious to the ache that blooms in her chest. Not wanting to cause an unseemly ruckus, Orithana pushes the anger down and follows her party anyway, all the way to a ship. There’s something about love stories — they seem so much better than actually being in love. Alfred, on the ship, gets twenty-five words from his wife through the air and, although Orithana can’t hear them, she shakes. The wind seems to chill as he grabs her hands and she looks down at this simple anchoring gesture in the middle of the sea, and realizes that this may be the last. He tells her a goodbye, echoing the words that he said in his first letter, and he claims that he hates it. Orithana feels hollow when she sees the potential last of his magic used to teleport him back into the open arms of Vir, and she feels that anger again, that which had never surfaced. She realizes that she wanted to tell him about how lost she was feeling. All the words die in her throat and she keeps silent for weeks until she knows better. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Orithana knows that there was never going to be a right time or a right person but, during a watch, she explains to Athena the circumstances. She tells her about the way in which her pact was broken and how terrified she is but Orithana brushes it off with jokes and a glamour that would fool most. Athena sees through it, because of course she does, and tells her to feel her rage or sadness if she needs to and something there in Orithana ignites as she rests her head on Athena’s shoulder and thanks her. A flicker of something spurs, something which she had buried so deep since meeting her in that tavern so soon after the death of Sirun. Weeks continue to go by and the sending stone that connects to Alfred seems to burn in her pocket. Orithana wishes to throw it into the water but, instead, clutches onto it with all the potential of it being a lifeline. She never uses it. When the rain falls, a nice relief from the heat of the island, Athena grabs her hand and they dance, there, in the middle of the forest and Orithana feels so happy. Her joy bubbles from her throat and she laughs, for once, unburdened in the jungle. She ignores how nice it feels to have such an anchor in the middle of a storm as Athena places her hand in Orithana’s. Later, in the outskirts of a city, Orithana and Athena sit inside of a tent as the warlock waits to contact her family. It is here, with the threat of the rain outside, that Athena tells her story. She explains how she found her home in the assassins she fights alongside, in how she had loved once, in how that love had betrayed and nearly killed her and, as a result, Athena had to end that love’s life to prove her loyalty. And she says such simple words — “you’re so easy to love” and it breaks Orithana’s heart as she realizes that she never saw a happy ending with the boy who is oceans away. They have things to do, but she explains that she doesn’t know, that she might not survive all of this yet a realization rings in her mind — </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>would be so easy to love. When Orithana casts her magic and discovers her sister made a pact with the beast that used to haunt her, she runs out panicked and terrified and into the arms of Athena. She doesn’t feel safe but the rogue assures Orithana it’ll all be okay. On the way back into the city, Athena holds her hand. It is still raining. Weeks pass as they stay on the island to find the relic of the cleric’s god and Orithana is terrified. Her mind races towards the horrific endings that lay in store but, by the grace of the Cat Lord, Yuakh’s Chosen arrives at the temple and reclaims the relic. The next morning, Orithana awakes with a new god by her side and a celestial influence in her blood. The next morning, in the middle of a derelict temple to a god who doesn’t seem to truly care, Athena confesses her love. She explains that Orithana is beautiful, and brave, and strong, and all the things she has so longed to hear from the lips of another. Orithana explains the confusion, the connection to a man who isn’t there, a desperate plea for Athena to just stay by her side while she figures it out. And they kiss. It is the second kiss Orithana has with another person. She is stunned. Then everything becomes so unclear and, for once, Orithana doesn’t know how she feels or the future that is laid out before her. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Orithana knows this — by the grace of a god pulling strings she’d prefer would remain still, they end up in </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>home, and she sees him and realizes that three months truly is forever. His hands, scarred, find hers again and he hugs her like she is the only thing keeping him afloat so she wraps her arms around him and all of the pain that had resided in her chest dissipates. There is a city at war around them and all Orithana feels is safe and so sad for the bright-eyed boy who had left her on that ship and the detached man that stands before her then. They leave and he explains about the details of the house war that rages on around them, expertly leading them through the city streets like their lives depend on it, because they truly do. When they return to his manor, his wife practically begs them not to take her husband away from her again and Orithana feels angered, annoyed, hurt but, most of all, resigned to the fate that seems to be out before them. Both of the Duila ladies, regal and tired from the war around them, make Orithana’s skin crawl but she keeps quiet because they are guests in the Duila manor. Then the realization strikes her — this is no simple reunion and, so, she says that the Duilas are nothing but a stop in their journey, nothing more. When the Lady Duila, the matron of his house, offers that they dare not take her grandson again, Orithana feels a bit of rage once more because the simple fact is that they do not own him. She keeps quiet as his shoulders sag and he looks so exhausted that he might fall over at any moment. When they leave the room, he sinks and Orithana feels that twinge of sadness again. It felt like only yesterday with the beach and the gentle waves lapping along the shore and she longs for the children they once were — ignorant, naive, not burdened by the threats of the world ending in more ways than one, and she hates the world for what it has made them. These scarred, broken, exhausted adventurers who cling onto each other for a single moment of calm among a storm that never parts for the sun. She wants to stay so bad, to be by his side, and the irony doesn’t escape her that the reason such a war is even threatening his city is because adultery within this society is enough to ruin an entire house. She wants to be beside him anyway for just a moment. After a day filled with their attempts at trying to get closer to the island where the ascension of Orithana’s ex-patron is taking place, he pulls her aside and, before Orithana leaves the room, she looks over her shoulder. When Athena doesn’t look back, Orithana realizes how much she hates this house and the city that they are trapped in.  Alone, he says goodbye, that he wishes it wasn’t like this but his family needs him, and he promises that it isn’t out of love that he stays there but of responsibility and duty, and all the things she wanted to say to him months ago die behind her lips. She wants to beg him to join them anyway, wants to explain that she needs his hand to hold when they face down her ex-patron and her sister but, instead, she says she won’t die and that they’ll return soon enough. This time, she lets him walk away to go sleep because he needs to rest for whatever battle lays before him. Orithana knows this — the world isn’t fair, but she wishes by all the gods in the pantheons spread across it that it was, that they would all get the happy ending that they so desperately deserve but they have a boat to catch at dawn and her shoulders sag, and she is just so tired. </span>
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